Methods of specifying an image and its transmission destination using an information processing apparatus, such as a personal computer(PC), for an image transmitting apparatus, such as a facsimile, connected to the information processing apparatus via a network have become popular in these days. Most of these methods, however, enable specifying only one document at one time of transmission. When a user wants to send a plurality of documents to one destination, therefore, the user has to send the documents in a plurality of times of transmission. This may force the user to carry out a number of operations, and, because a communication line is usually disconnected for every transmission request, may lead to higher communication charges.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-37693 discloses a method of efficient fax transmission which combines data for a plurality of fax transmission requests and transmits the combined data at a time. According to this method, in data transmission to the same destination, data for a plurality of fax transmission requests are combined and are transmitted at a time so as to achieve efficient data transmission and reduce communication charges.
According to the method disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-37693, every time a fax transmission request is received, a port at which a job having the same fax number is present is selected out of a plurality of fax transmission ports, based on a fax number specified by the current Fax transmission request, and the current fax transmission request is assigned to the selected port. If a user gives an instruction for data combination, the current fax transmission request job is added to the end of the jobs having the same fax number (combined jobs). Afterward, when fax transmission timing arrives, data in a plurality of combined jobs are written consecutively to a data buffer assigned to the selected port to be combined as data to be faxed.
According to the above method, however, the current fax transmission request job is added to the end of jobs having the same fax number, so that the data can be faxed only in the same order as the order that transmission requests are conducted. In other words, when the user selects data as to-be-transmitted data hoping that the data is faxed in the combined form, the transmission order of the data cannot be changed once the data has been selected as to-be-transmitted data.
It is preferable that the user be able to check information about to-be-transmitted data (outline, transmission order, etc., of the data). Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-37693, however, discloses or suggests nothing about this point.